Published: May 16, 2008 01:22 pm            

FRIDAY: Lockport vets will visit World War II Memorial (1:22 p.m.)

On Honor Flight

Three World War II veterans from Lockport have been chosen to be on the first Honor Flight from the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport on June 7.

Elmer “Red” Lederhaus, Dudley Oldham and Jack Taylor will be flown to Washington D.C. to visit the World War II Memorial. The vets will return home the same night.

Honor Flight began in May, 2005 with six small planes flying 12 WW II veterans out of Springfield, Ohio. The non-profit organization now has 69 hubs throughout and has flown over 6,000 vets.

There will be 33 vets from the Niagara Frontier and 23 guardians. The vets fly free, the guardians pay their own way. The Friends of Family Support Association (FFSA) made the trip possible.

“When this need was brought to our attention, we wanted to respond,” said Debbie Mellon of the Niagara Falls Air Base which 914th Airlift Wing and 107th. Funds from the community are used to support the flights and FFSA is hoping to land a corporate sponsor.

Southwest Airlines will carry the vets to the Baltimore Airport where they will be bused to the capital. On board, passengers will see a video of the monument which was not completed until 2004. The memorial is between Constitution and Independence Avenues and is flanked by the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

Scooters will be available to help the vets get around the Capitol. Some vets are on oxygen and need wheelchairs.

John “Jack” Taylor, 89, who served four years, three months and 10 days in the has been to Washington, but not to the WWII monument.

Taylor signed up on April 1, 1941 and was discharged July 25, 1945. After assignments in South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri and North Carolina, Taylor left from New York City with the 8th Infantry Division on June 28, 1944.

The member of the signal corps went ton Belgium, Holland and Germany, including the Battle of the Bulge, and earned five battle stars. Taylor was a cryptographer who worked on top secret code machines. He started as a $21 a month private and wound up a staff sergeant.

Jack Taylor married Janet Kennedy while he was in the service and the couple have three children. He worked for New York Telephone for 36 years.

His daughter, Linda Taylor, will serve as a guardian.

Elmer “Red” Lederhaus, 83, who went in the Army/Air Force in June, 1943 didn’t qualify in pilot training but became a radar man on a B-17. He served until 1946. Missions took him over England and Germany.

After discharge he did odd jobs and painted houses until he opened the car wash on Transit Road in 1956. His sons, Tim and Brad, run the gas station now.

Lederhaus has been to Washington to see the monument in 2003, but it was only a brief stop.

“A lot of people haven’t seen it,” he said. “I want to go down with a bunch of fellows and reminisce a little bit. It makes tears come to eyes when you see it.”

Dudley Oldham was an air traffic controller in the Air Force, serving in India and China from 1942 to 1946. The U.S. put up an airbase in Jorhot, India for freight planes and B-29s and B-25s going to Chengtu, China. The Japanese controlled the airways along the Pacific coast.

Oldham, a pharmacist at Smith’s Pharmacy in Bewley Building, has never seen monument. His brother, Tom will be a guardian.

Earl Morris, an Air Force veteran, founded Honor Flight. It is a non profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans. Top priority is given to the senior veterans – WW II survivors along with those other veterans that may be terminally ill.

With the youngest WWII vets now over 80, Honor Flight seeks offer the trip to Washington to as many of the remaining World War II vets as possible. Some 1,200 World War II vets die each day and many will pass on without having the opportunity to see the monument erected in their honor.

Honor Air of Hendersonville, N. C. and Hero Flight of Provo, Utah, formed the Honor Flight Network. It is funded solely through donations from the public.

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott  439-9222, ext. 6246.

        

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